Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg has always been the classic film nerd, a kid who loved movies who grew up to become a filmmaker. The Fabelmans is a semi-autobiographical picture about just such a kid. He’s the second director to recently do a semi-autobiographical picture following Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. Neither film has much in common except showcasing the times they grew up in. Branagh’s youth was dominated by The Troubles while Spielberg’s high school years face virulent antisemitism.

Gabrielle LaBelle plays Sam Fabelman (played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord during the early scenes) who is transfixed by the train crash scene in The Greatest Show on Earth and while he enjoys watching the model trains he receives across the 8 days of Hanukkah, it’s when his mother (Michelle Williams) encourages him to capture the crash with his dad’s (Paul Dano) rudimentary film camera and relive it that he becomes enamored with the craft of filmmaking. His Boy Scout and high school years are punctuated with little movies he makes about the events that happen therein, including a World War II feature, a camping trip document, and coverage of the school-sanctioned skip day event.

LaBelle is a terrific young actor bringing us into the life of Sam Fabelman and embodying the young Spielberg simulacrum as he discovers his passion, but also unearths some unquiet truths about his family. While it’s not clear just how much of this is autobiographical and how much is fiction, it blends together effectively, breezing past for much of its 2.5 hour runtime. Williams is transcendent as his mother Mitzi, but her supporting performance has been improperly elevated to lead status late. Dano does fine work in support as do Seth Rogen, Judd Hirsch, and Julia Butters. Robin Bartlett is given too little screen time as Mitzi’s mother while Jeannie Berlin is given plenty as Dano’s Burt’s mother.

The biggest issues with the film is how it moves from scene to scene letting the audience interpret, but sometimes devalues moments and actors who could have had a larger impact on the film itself. Bartlett is the prime example. Given two scenes in the whole movie, it isn’t until the second set that it becomes clear who her character actually is and while that first appearance gives the audience a little bit of information about her and how important the character should be in that moment, it’s over far too soon and we’re left a bit bewildered by the briefness of the purpose. Spielberg does a fine job conveying his love of cinema, but ultimately the film wants to be more impressive than it really is, owing to the feeling of incompleteness of Tony Kushner’s otherwise compelling screenplay.